Thursday, December 31, 2009

Teenager Rifqa Bary, 17 years old, grew up in a Muslim family, originally from Sri Lanka. They moved to Ohio when she was 3 years old. Over 4 years ago, she became a Christian, but did not tell her parents, because she knew the consequences. When their mosque found out by seeing her Facebook page, they reported it to her parents, and told her dad to "take care of it." She fled to Florida after her dad (who has been abusive to her for many years) threatened to kill her. There were several court hearings in Orlando, FL, and she was sent back to Ohio, where there has been a court hearing, and will be another one in Jan. She is living in a foster home, no visitors allowed. A CAIR-appointed lawyer is representing her dad. CAIR has been shown to have terrorist ties. In Muslim countries, it is a capital crime, punishable by death, for any Muslim to convert to any other religion.

“When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed. In such a case, it is obligatory for the caliph (A: or his representative) to ask him to repent and return to Islam. If he does, it is accepted from him, but if he refuses, he is immediately killed.” — ‘Umdat al-Salik o8.1-2

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Islam is a political system, a culture and a religion. The political system has a legal code call Sharia law.

When most people think about Islam and danger to our civilization, they think of jihad. But there is something that is far more dangerous than jihad--Sharia law---Islamic law. But Sharia is not law in the sense that we think of it.

Sharia not only covers the normal legal things that you might think of - contracts, wills, criminal law, how people are to be punished - but it also includes rules on how to run a family, have sex, worship, pray, say hello and other ideas that we would call religious and cultural. This is because Sharia law is based upon the Koran and the Sunna. The Sunna is found in the Sira (Mohammed's biography) and the Hadith (his Traditions). Sharia law is a compilation of the directives found in the Sunna and the Koran.

Sharia law is an attempt to conform all societies into a society that duplicates Arabia in the days of Mohammed. Sharia law can be seen as a "paper Mohammed" devoted to forcing every person to be like an Arab of Medina in 632 AD. Therefore, it goes into all the details of human life that Mohammed dictated and includes the regulation of sex, food, worship, travel and all legal details. Since Mohammed set rules for the smallest detail of life, so does Sharia.

Why is Sharia more dangerous than jihad?

What most people mean by jihad is the jihad of the sword: violence. We can use police and military to protect ourselves against violence, but there is a ‘soft’ jihad that comes from money, the pen and the tongue. The ‘soft’ jihad is devoted to us allowing Sharia law to function in our society. Muslims want Sharia law, because only under Sharia law can Muslims practice pure Islam.

Sharia dictates the form of government and its laws. Real Islam cannot be practiced in America today, because we have a Constitution. But our Constitution is ignorant, man-made garbage according to Sharia law. The work that Jefferson, Adams, Benjamin Franklin and all of the other Founding Fathers established is an offense to Islam. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are pure ignorance, because they violate Sharia law and Islam. Why?

Because, according to Islam and Sharia law, Benjamin Franklin and all the other people who put together our Constitution had no knowledge of any sort of all. How could they? Because, according to Islam and Sharia law, the only real knowledge comes from the Koran and the Sunnah. There's no actual knowledge outside of those three books – the Koran, Sira, and Hadith. Therefore, only laws that are based upon the Koran, Sira and Hadith can be true or real, because man-made laws, our Constitution, all of our legal theory---they're nothing. They're all a part of Jahiliya - ignorance.

Our legal system is based upon two principles-the Golden Rule and critical thought. The Golden Rule is a unitary ethical system-all people are to be treated the same. When we say, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” we mean ALL others, without regard to sex, race, or age. It is unitary, because there is one rule---one basis of ethics.

Islam is based, instead, on dualistic ethics---there is one set of rules for Muslims, and another set of rules for kafirs. In the same way, there is one set of laws for men, and another set of laws for women.

Islam is not based upon critical thought, but on authoritative thought. Truth is found by looking it up in the only authoritative texts - Koran, Sira and Hadith. This means that Sharia cannot change, since the foundational texts cannot change. Sharia does not adapt. We must adapt to Sharia.

The other basis of Islamic thought, ethics and legal code is submission---all kafirs and their institutions must submit to Islamic law. We used to have submissive laws in this country, since slavery is based upon one race submitting to another. But that violates the unitary ethics of the Golden Rule, so we ended slavery.

Islam sneers at our Constitution, because it violates all of Sharia law. Therefore, as Islam comes to America, Sharia law must be triumphant.

Enough about theory; let's take some of our freedoms and see how they violate Islamic law. Pretend that you just woke up this morning and it is a Sharia world. What is changed?

If you said that Mohammed made his living by taking other people's money, you would go to jail. There is no freedom of speech in Islam. To contradict Islam violates Sharia law. This is because Mohammed would not tolerate being told he was wrong. When he conquered Mecca, after he prayed, he issued death warrants against those intellectuals and artists who had disagreed with him. Since Sharia is a paper Mohammed, it dictates death to those who disagree with Mohammed.

Freedom of the press is like freedom of speech. Sharia law must control the media and all artistic expression. We saw this in the Danish Mohammed cartoons. The cartoons made fun of Islamic violence. When Muslims saw them, they turned violent and burned cities and killed people. The violence induced fear and all of the kafir newspapers submitted to Islam and dropped their freedom of the press. Sharia law prevailed over our Constitution.

Sharia law forbids any and all artistic expression that is offensive to Islam. This means that movies, TV, the net and all art must conform to Islam in a Sharia world.

Equality of the sexes is part of our laws, but Sharia is very clear that women and men are treated differently under the law, since in more than 95% of the references to women in the Koran, Sira and Hadith, the woman is subjugated to the man. Under Sharia, women must submit to men.

4:34 Allah has made men superior to women because men spend their wealth to support them. Therefore, virtuous women are obedient, and they are to guard their unseen parts as Allah has guarded them. As for rebellious women, admonish them first, and then send them to a separate bed, and then beat them.

So the Koran says that women can be beaten. Muhammad struck his wife, and said that no one should ever ask a man why he beats his wife. So Sharia lays out exactly how a wife is to be beaten---what precedes the beating, and where and how she is to be struck.

The submission of women does not stop with their beating. In Sharia law, a woman's testimony in court is worth half that of a man's testimony. Women receive half as much as a man in an inheritance. Men have full right of divorce, but not women. Sharia goes on and on about how to subjugate women.

Women are completed subjugated inside of Sharia law. Why should we tolerate the Sharia's subjugation of women?

In America, all categories of people can carry weapons, but under Sharia law, kafirs are forbidden to carry weapons; only Muslims may be armed. This illustrates both dualism and subjugation. Dualism separates the kafir from the Muslim. Submission means that the kafir must be in a weaker position.

Under Sharia law, an apostate (one who leaves Islam) can be killed. Apostasy is the worst crime in Sharia. So much for ‘freedom of religion.’ Under Sharia law, no one can proselytize Muslims, but Muslims can proselytize everybody. The principle of submission is very clear here.

In every case there is dualism and subjugation. Dualism, because there are always two sets of laws; and subjugation, because the separated class called kafirs, as well as women and apostates, must submit to Islam.

Our freedoms will have to go, because they are offensive to Allah. Mohammed never allowed Freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of religion or freedom of the press; and Sharia does not allow those freedoms.

Our Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and bill of rights, are the result of critical thinking based upon the Golden Rule, which is foreign to Sharia law. Sharia law is based upon one principle authority - the Trilogy of the Koran, the Sira and Hadith. The only true form of government and laws is Sharia. All of our civilization is jahiliyah (ignorance).

Now, the way it starts is this: Muslims say, ‘Our Sharia is so precious to us, and our laws are so beautiful to us, that we want to be governed by our laws. Now we, of course, are here today to follow your laws. But in matters of family---because family in Islam is a very special thing---we believe that only the laws of Allah can rule our families. So let us use our religion and govern our own families in matters such as wills, estates, divorce, domestic abuse, adoption - all of these things which are none of your business---the way we run our community---because we are separate from you. We want our own special laws to govern the special people, the best of people.’

Now, this seems innocent enough to dhimmis, to politicians, and to professors who know nothing of Islam. In the process of welcoming it, we are submitting to it, since Islam wants to do things its way. And what does it matter to us how a Muslim writes a will? On the surface, it seems like a small thing, and nothing to worry about. In England, for instance, there are many Sharia courts set up to rule over Muslims. England has entered into legal dualism and has given up sovereignty.

You might say that Sharia is the longest ‘wedge’ in the world, and the thin end of is in place in England---but it is also already in place in America. That’s right. Sharia law is even being implemented here in America.

In America, in cities where Muslims congregate to create their own separate empires, Sharia law is already in place.

In certain areas of America today, a Muslim woman does not call the police if she is beaten, because the Muslim community will turn against her. A Muslim husband can beat his wife by Sharia law. The Islamic community enforces Sharia in the areas it controls. This is implementation of Sharia law in America.

Factories that employ many Muslims find that they must obey Sharia law, and set aside prayer rooms and allow time off. So, Sharia law has started in America. It starts with prayer, but it does not end with prayer. In time, there will be no kafir supervisors in the company, because Sharia does not allow a Muslim to be subordinate in any way. It might take a few centuries (or less), but one day in our ‘kafir’ civilization, when Sharia law is in force 100%, the days of a kafir boss over a Muslim will not even be a memory. This is the nature of Sharia law.

Added to the long list of Sharia horrors is the dhimmi. The Sharia lays out all of the rules for the dhimmis-how they are to be taxed, regulated, subjugated and humiliated. Of course, Sharia calls non-Muslims kafirs---the people that Allah and Mohammed hated.

Our symbol of justice, Lady Justice, is a blindfolded woman holding scales in her hands. She is an allegorical personification of the moral force in judicial systems. She is blindfolded in order to indicate that justice is impartial and should be meted out objectively, regardless of identity, money, power, or weakness. She symbolizes the neutrality of the dispensing of justice. Now, we may not always succeed in that, but that is the ideal. But in Islam, justice is not impartial or neutral. The first thing justice wants to know in Sharia is: Is the person a kafir, a dhimmi, a woman, a man, or a slave---because justice for all these people - man, woman, dhimmi, kafir, or slave, is different. The civil penalties are different. Different fines are levied. Criminal codes are different. If a Muslim kills a kafir, then he is not subject to the same penalty as if he killed a Muslim.

Now, since all of Sharia law is built upon submission and duality, that means that the entire purpose of Sharia law is subjugation. Why should we tolerate any aspect of it?

Why should we allow any part of Sharia law, including Sharia finance, to exist in our civilization? All of Sharia is permeated by subjugation and duality. Every single law inside of Sharia, in some way, is about subjugation and duality. We should have zero tolerance for Sharia law, because every element of it violates every one of our principles regarding how to act as a human being.

We should not tolerate anything about Sharia law. Halal food---who cares? Footbaths in the bathrooms in America to comply with Sharia law? We don't want to implement anything about Sharia law, because every single aspect of it is an affront to our whole way of being. Sharia is designed to annihilate the host culture! Why should we allow any part of a barbaric legal system to exist here?

Sharia law, in every way, is against everything that our civilization is based upon, in terms of law and legality, how we treat a fellow human being, and the definition of justice. Sharia law destroys all of these things.

So, we must learn what Sharia law is. We must resist it at every level. We should detest Sharia law because it is inhuman. It is not a sacred law; it is oppression, duality and subjugation. We must oppose it at every turn.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Someone asked a child, "Did you get everything you wanted for Christmas?" The child replied, "No, but it's not my birthday!"

After being fed up with the hassle and stress of Christmas shopping, someone announced, "Whoever started this thing called Christmas should be shot!" Another person, close by, replied, "Don't worry. They already crucified Him."

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” (Micah 5:2)

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this." (Isaiah 9:6-7)

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). (Matthew 1:23)

"And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy–the Son of God." (Luke 1:35)

"An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."” (Luke 2:9-14)

Monday, December 21, 2009

In Eastern countries (unlike the West), the elderly are seen as wise, because of their experience. Through trial and error, they often have learned more common sense and wisdom than most young people have. They have learned that actions have consequences. They have also learned through pain and mistakes, and usually have gone through more hard times than young people have, and have had to learn how to deal with the hardships of life. They have discovered that life does not always seem fair, and that things don’t always turn out the way you think they will turn out. They have seen injustice in their lifetime. Yet, as people with religious convictions, they have seen how God relates to this life and can instruct the young adult about all these matters.

Traditionally, in the East, as I mentioned, the elderly are often sought out for their wisdom. Their opinions are respected---again, unlike in the West. In the West, it seems it is the young people who are familiar with the latest technologies and devices, who know all the latest films and television shows, and who know the latest scientific discoveries. They are the ones who seem the most computer and Internet savvy.

Because the young people of today seem to focus on all the new things, instead of focusing so much on the old traditions and ways, maybe this is why they usually have the superior technical knowledge, while the elderly are often resistant to, or uninterested in, learning the new technologies. This may be part of the reason why young people often act so cocky, acting like they know more than their parents and grandparents. They sometimes seem to think they know it all. They sometimes ignore the warnings and advice of their elders, which sometimes leads them to get into trouble. They often have to learn the hard way, on their own, instead of learning from the wisdom of their elders. This may lead the elderly in the household feeling useless and helpless, since their advice and hard-earned wisdom is not listened to. And, when the young people do get into trouble or bring sorrow upon their lives, this grieves the parents and grandparents.

The parents and grandparents hope their children will keep the old ways and will respect their elders and not break tradition. They want their children to honor them and obey them, instead of rebelling. Children, on the other hand, sometimes resent being told what to do, especially if they are teenagers. They want to fit in with the culture and blend in with their friends and the society where they live. They don’t want to be seen as an oddball or weirdo. They want to be accepted by their peers. Children tend to learn new languages easier than older people do, and therefore, those children who are immigrants are usually the first and quickest to pick up a new language, as well as new customs. And they are sometimes the ones who translate or interpret those new things to their parents and grandparents. This often causes somewhat of a role reversal, where the children teach the parents. And it often causes stress and tension on the family, because children teaching parents is not natural.

Sometimes, though it may be rare, a child comes along who can bridge the gap between the old and the new, who observes the traditions yet takes those things that are good and grows through his participation in modern life. Because he does not defile or ignore the old ways and traditions, the parents of such a child would be proud of him, and he would be respected and well liked by his friends and community. Though this type of child does not come along very often, there would certainly be much less tension and strife in such a household. What parent would not want to have a child such as this?

According to the Qur’an, Zakariya’s son Yahya (John) was such a child. The Qur’an teaches that Yahya was filled with wisdom from his youth. He learned about life, about life’s pains and disappointments and about justice and injustice, without having to learn the hard way. God had given him wisdom in his youth, and that wisdom helped determine all of his actions and helped him in his relationships.

Children are sometimes cruel to animals, throwing stones at dogs, or pulling cat’s tails, or being cruel to frogs and lizards. They may need to be reminded to do their chores. But Yahya wasn’t like this. He felt pity for God’s creatures. He realized they were just dumb creatures, led by their natural drives and instincts, unable to think or reason for themselves. Yahya lived at peace with God’s creatures, and showed wisdom.

Yahya guarded against youthful lusts and lived pure for God. He did not dwell on evil thoughts, and avoided evil actions. That is true wisdom.

Yahya was devout. He had a humble and submissive attitude toward God and obeyed God’s commands. He worshiped God throughout his entire life, and his desire was to please God in all that he did. Truly, that is wisdom.

Any parent would be pleased to have Yahya as a son, because he was obedient and he always lived to please God and serve God, and he was submissive to God’s will. He was kind to his parents and he treated his parents with both honor and respect. His submission, obedience and understanding kept him from rebelling against his parents. He was not proud, but was humble. That is wisdom.

Yahya had all these good qualities because God had given them to him when he was a youth, rather than letting him acquire these things through age and experience.

[Sura 19:12] "O John, you shall uphold the scripture, strongly." We endowed him with wisdom, even in his youth.

[19:13] And (we endowed him with) kindness from us and purity, for he was righteous.

[19:14] He honored his parents, and was never a disobedient tyrant.

[19:15] Peace be upon him the day he was born, the day he dies, and the day he is resurrected back to life.

In the Bible, Proverbs 1:7 also talks about wisdom:

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

’Fools’ describes those who are morally deficient.

The Bible teaches that wisdom is the most important thing a child can possess, and urges young people to seek out wisdom and understanding.

Proverbs 2:1-11 talks about the moral benefits of wisdom when it states:

“My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones. Then you will understand what is right and just and fair—every good path. For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Discretion will protect you.”

These should be great encouragement and wonderful instruction and promises for young people today. And truly, we can find wisdom no matter how young or old we are. Surely, many parents desire more wisdom in knowing how to deal with their children.

If you respect, honor and obey God, you are wise. And then, if God holds first place in your life, then everything else in your life will fall into place. That is true wisdom!

If you have this wisdom, you must learn to apply it. Instead of letting anger and emotion dictate your actions, seek to find out what God would have you do in that situation; doing so will bring the most praise and honor to God. In every situation, think about what the wise reaction should be. Think about what action would bring the most glory to God. Consider the consequences of your action, before reacting out of impulse.

Do you not admire the Qur’anic Yahya for his wisdom? God can give you wisdom as well, if you seek out His help with all of your heart and desire. My authority, which is the Bible, says that this is so.

The Bible also says very good things about John, whom the Qur’an calls Yahya. Read these promises that God’s angel gave to John’s father, Zechariah:

“But the angel said to him: "Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth.” (Luke 1:13-15)

The Bible also says this about John:“And the child continued to grow and to become strong in spirit…” (Luke 1:80a)

(The idea for this article, as well as the previous article, comes from the book, “Jesus Gives Peace: Jesus in the Qur’an and the Bible”)

Saturday, December 19, 2009

My previous posts on Islam have been mainly for the purpose of educating Westerners about Islam, since most Westerners don’t know too much about Islam. However, in this article, I want to come at it from a different angle. I want to attempt to come at it more from a Muslim’s perspective, or as if I am talking to a Muslim. Sort of like trying to look at things through a Muslim's eyes.

I wonder if Muslims sometimes feel sad about the situation in America. Surely they are shocked by the lack of moral standards, the crime and the frequent corruption in government and politics. A Muslim girl once told me that, after 9/11, many people would stare at her with unfriendly looks. Surely some Muslims have sometimes been the victim of racial, cultural or religious prejudice. Maybe Muslims wonder what the future of America will be, especially when they see homosexuals demanding rights and gay marriage being legalized. What do Muslims think when they see so many children born out of wedlock, and so many divorces, and so many abortions happening?

Do Muslims wonder what will happen to their children and grandchildren in such an environment? Do they wonder if their children will be able to keep their faith in Allah when they go to Western schools that teach things that are very different from Islam? What do Muslims think when they see uninhibited sex, violence, greed and lust on TV and in movies, and especially when their children are exposed to that? Do they worry that their children will be humbled and shamed when they refuse to eat foods that are not halal in school lunches, or when they observe religious holidays? What about the Western cultural habits of dating, and the open free association and friendship between men and women? Do they worry that America’s (or Canada’s or Europe’s) secularism will affect their children’s sensitive spirits and turn them away from submission to Allah?

How does a Muslim feel when they compromise what they believe in order to adjust to the foreign society around them? What happens to their traditional modesty? Does the Western high cost of living force them to become workaholics and neglect their family responsibilities?

As long as a Muslim is alive, he can lead his family. But what about when that Muslim is no longer around? What will happen to his family then? Does he worry that his descendants will forget their native language, their culture, and even their religion?

According to the Qur’an, the ancient prophet Zakariya (Zechariah) had similar questions about the future of his relatives and friends. He didn’t let his own personal needs and desires blind him to the needs of his people. He was concerned about what would happen to his family and friends when he died. This is recorded in the Qur’an, Sura 19, verses 2-10.

Could it be that the way Zakariya solved his problem could also be helpful today? Zakariya thought he knew how to help his people preserve their faith and their future. He thought he knew how to bring about the solution.

Zakariya believed that God would send a prophet like himself to continue his work and show the people how to keep their faith.

Zakariya believed in prayer. He believed that prayer was more than just bowing in humble submission to honor God. He believed that prayer could actually move God to take action on behalf of the people. Zakariya believed in prayer because he felt he had always been blessed when he prayed to God, and he believed that God actually heard him and answered him.

Because of his belief in prayer, Zakariya asked God to send the prophet that his people would need. This prayer was in addition to the regular prayers that he and his people offered publicly in the formal worship services. To make this special prayer, Zakariya went into his own room, alone, and closed the door so he could secretly talk to God.

In this secret prayer, Zakariya opened his heart to God and shared his deepest fears and his hopes with God. He prayed, “I’m afraid what my relatives and colleagues will do after I’m gone. Without me here to straighten them out, they might forget about God and become open sinners. God, you know that I’m old and that my wife is barren. But send me an heir---a boy who will represent me and who will represent the continuation of my people. Make him grow into a man into whom you are well pleased.”

God actually heard and answered Zakariya’s prayer. God promised Zakariya that he would have a son whose name would be called Yahya (John). Since Zakariya was very old and his wife was barren, he asked God to show him a sign, so that he would know that God would answer his prayer, and so that he might be sure of God’s word. God gave him a sign: He told Zakariya that he would not be able to speak for 3 nights.

Zakariya was now satisfied. He left his private place of prayer and went out to his people. Since he now could not talk, he made signs to his people that they should continue to worship and praise God every morning and evening.

Don’t you think that was a marvelous way for God to answer Zakariya’s prayer and take charge of the future of his people? According to the Bible, Zechariah’s son, John, was sent to prepare the people for the coming of Jesus. The Bible records that story in Luke 1:5-25. You might notice that the details of the story differ, but both the Bible and the Qur’an mention Zechariah’s age, the fact that his wife was barren, his prayer, God’s answer, and Zechariah’s inability to speak for a time.

Today, we surely feel the need for God to do something dramatic to keep the believers faithful, and to bring unbelievers to faith. In the same way that Zakariya secretly prayed for God to intervene in human affairs, we can also secretly pray that God would act in our day to save our family and our nation from unbelief and from destruction. According to the Bible, which is my authority, Jesus advised, “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” This counsel of Jesus is found in the Bible, in Matthew 6:6.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Muhammad divided the world into two houses: the house of Islam and the house of war. In Arabic, it's Dar Al-Islam and Dar Al-Harb, or the House of War. So, the entire non-Muslim world is called the House of War, and is in transition to become the House of Islam. Therefore, a faithful Muslim sees the world as two parts: Muslim, and Going-To-Be Muslim. Muslims see the world as being in transition.

The word "Islam" means "submission," and a faithful Muslim thinks there will be world peace when the whole world has submitted to the will of Allah. Now, some say that a "Moderate" Muslim thinks the world will submit to Allah in the distant future. So, since it's so far away, and it's not going to happen during our lifetime, those Muslims will (supposedly) think, "Since it's not going to happen now, let's just get along with everybody." However, a "violent" Muslim thinks that the world will submit to Allah now, so they want to help make it happen (by using terrorism, etc.).

Jihadist Muslims believe the whole world should submit to Islam, so, when they come to the U.S., they want to see Shari'a law being implemented. The goal of jihadists, whether they will admit it or not, is to Islamicize America. Strictly speaking, Islam has been on the march since its inception. In the Qur'an, and in the teachings of Muhammad, and in Islamic tradition, theology and law, there are mandates commanding Muslims to wage war against unbelievers. This is the reason there has been all these jihadi attacks against civilians only.

Experts say the method of radical jihad is used to implement an ultimate goal---Shari'a law. Jihadists fight in order to bring Shari'a to a land where it is not currently enforced. Shari'a (Islamic) law is considered by Muslims to be the law of Allah, just as much as Christians understand the Ten Commandments to be the law of God.

There have been more than 14,000 distinctly jihadi attacks since 9/11 around the world. This works out to 4.7 attacks, on average, per day.

Jihad is warfare against unbelievers in order to subjugate them under the rule of Islamic law, and institutionalize and impose upon them a system of discriminatory laws that make sure they do not enjoy equality of rights with Muslims, but rather are made to feel their renegade status as people who have rejected Muhammad's prophetic role, every day of their lives.

Defenders of Islam note that there are verses in the Qur'an calling for peace with unbelievers. But a key point to understand is that most sects of traditional Islam teach that those verses have been abrogated.

Ibn Ishaq (died 767 AD) was Muhammad's first biographer, an 8th century Muslim writer, who explained that the Qur'an actually has 3 stages of development in its teachings on jihad and unbelievers. The first stage is tolerance, which was the prevailing understanding of the relationship between Muslims and nonbelievers during the period when Muhammad was in Mecca, and the Muslims were merely a small band that did not have a whole lot of power, and were facing a much larger and more formidable enemy. Ibn Ishaq taught that it is a progression, so that the later stages cancel out the earlier, and 'offensive' jihad (in other words, not a spiritual struggle within yourself, but jihad against non-Muslims) is the Quran's word for all time that must be followed, whereas tolerance was only for a limited period. This is the unanimous teaching of the schools of jurisprudence and all the orthodox sects of Islam to this day---that offensive jihad is the highest level of jihad, and the one that is applicable for all time. The desire to bring the entire world into subjection under Allah is where the concept of jihad enters the picture.

Some have said that Osama bin Laden and terrorists and militants have hijacked Islam. However, those terrorists and militants were indeed Muslims. They were informed and motivated by their interpretation and belief of Islam. And to deny that is to deny the responsibility among the teachers of Islam today, which still teach jihad.

Some say Islam is not monolithic (i.e., a rigid, undivided whole). Within Islam, there are many different sects, but all of them are united by some central ideas. Interpretations of the Qur'an vary according to a number of factors. All Muslims have the Qur'an, but it's really the traditions that you bring to it that determine how you interpret it, and how you're going to understand what it's stating.

Islam is not primarily a theological system, but rather a legal system. To know who you are, to know what to do, to know how to eat, where to live, how to travel, you always go back to Islamic law. The heart of Islam is the Hadith. The Hadith is a collection of 600,000 sayings of Muhammad that developed over a 200-year period. Between 650-850, various scholars traveled around the Muslim world (North Africa, Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, etc.), talking to people, collecting stories about what they understood Muhammad had said and what Muhammad had done. They collected these stories into a book called the Hadith. These stories tell you how to live your life.

In a very real sense, the totality of Islamic life and beliefs could be summed up in the phrase, "What would Muhammad do?"

I understand that Muslims are encouraged, and even 'programmed,' to be a part of establishing the United States of Islam (Kingdom of Allah on earth). And what we call "terrorism," Muslims call struggle. That's how Muslims can say that Islam condemns terrorism. They consider them to be "freedom fighters," not terrorists.

Now, some say that only 10% of Muslims are "radical." If that is accurate (and remember that those "Radicals" are willing to die, and they want the USA gone/dead), and if it only took 19 "Radicals" to kill over 3000 people on Sept. 11, 2001, then how many ("Radical") Muslims do you think it will take to wipe out the USA, which is composed of 350 million people? Estimates say there are as many as 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. If the very conservative estimate is correct that only 10% are "Radical," then that is 150 million "Radical," "terrorist" Muslims in the world. That's the size of the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia and Nigeria. Bangladesh has 150 million people. Facebook has 150 million people.

We consider Saudi Arabia to be our friends, and to be "moderate" Muslims. Yet, in Saudi Arabia, every week, people are beheaded and every week, people have their hands cut off. So how can we consider this "moderate?"

Islam has more than 80 sects, and numerous denominations. You can read more about the various branches of Islam here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_schools_and_brancheshttp://www.religion-cults.com/Islam/islam5.html

BTW, the only answer to Islam and what's happening around the world is the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no other solution. The more Muslims that come to Christ, the less Muslims there are for the terrorists to recruit.

Also, as much as we hear about the progress of radical Islam on the march, there is another story to be told: Muslims coming to faith in Jesus Christ. This is happening in the millions.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Islam is based upon two principles - submission and duality. When you understand how these principles work, you'll understand the political doctrine of Islam.

Islam's first principle is submission---and that is part of the meaning of both the words Islam and Muslim. Islam means 'to submit' and Muslim means 'one who has submitted.'

Islam is a chain of submission. The ranking of authority is Allah, then Muhammad, the Muslim, the kafir, the dhimmi and the slave. In this country, we are beginning to see how submission works. We're not as far along as Europe, but Muslims have immigrated here and have started making their demands. The first thing they have demanded is this: everything in the textbooks of America must conform to their way of teaching about Islam. No kafir is allowed to write in the textbooks of America anything that is critical of Islam. It all has to be vetted by Islam. Our textbook system has already submitted.

But submission is not enough to explain the success of Islam. Its most powerful principle is duality. Duality is the second major principle of Islam. We see duality in how the Qur’an and Muhammad's life are divided. First comes Mecca: the preacher...the religion---'You have your religion, I have mine.' Then comes Medina. Medina is jihad. You must submit in this life, or Islam has the option of harming you. The two positions contradict each other, but both of them are equally true.

This duality explains Islam's overwhelming success. Islam has two faces that it presents to the world. The face of Mecca and the face of Medina. Medina is the violent phase---the political phase. Mecca is the nice phase. What we have is that the Qur’an of Mecca is used as a shield. It's the Teflon coating. It's the public face of Islam. Mecca is what Muslims always talk about when they talk about Islam to kafirs. This duality---this subtlety---is what makes Islam so powerful, because you can't just jump up and condemn Islam as being totally violent. Most Muslims are not violent at all, so therefore, this charge doesn't work.

Duality is when Muslims say that anything that is based upon the Qur’an of Medina is not the real Islam (i.e., Osama bin Laden, 9/11, al Quaeda)---"Oh, that's not the real Islam." The duality of Islam lies in the fact that two contradictory things are both true. The Muslim friend, the nice Muslim at work---they're only one-half of Islam. The real Islam actually includes both the Muslim friend and Osama bin Laden. The real Islam includes both the Qur’an of Mecca (religious) and the Qur’an of Medina (political)...hence, we have a duality.

In our courts of law, if you take an oath as a witness, you swear: "I will tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth." The 'nothing but the truth' prohibits lies. But 'the whole truth' prohibits something that's equally a lie---a half-truth. The whole truth of Islam includes the half-truth of Mecca and the other half-truth of Medina.

So, the religious Qur’an of Mecca is the Teflon coating. It's the Medina version that's always denied in public, but inside of Islam, it is known that Medina outranks Mecca. This outranking of Medina over Mecca is what explains another phenomena in Islam. When something dreadful happens, such as the 9/11 destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center; the London bombings; the Muhammad cartoon riots---when those happen, Muslims say, "Oh, that is not the real Islam." And yet, it is the real Islam. But notice something: they do not protest against those dreadful incidents; they merely deny that Islam is to blame for them. Why don't they protest against the Medinan Muslims, the Jihadists? Because they are outranked. The Medinan Qur’an that celebrates war and political power is higher and more powerful than the Meccan Qur’an. In The Wizard of Oz, when they see the little man behind the curtain, and a voice says, "Oh, no, no, do not look at the man behind the curtain," that is the way the duality of Mecca and Medina works. Mecca says, "Oh, no, do not look at the Medinan Qur’an behind the curtain!" So we don't---and we're fooled.

We need to see the entire truth of Islam. The whole truth, not the half-truth. That is the reason that understanding the principle of duality is an absolute necessity. If you do not understand the principle of duality, you will always be fooled by the Qur’an of Mecca.

Let's see how duality can work in real life. Let's say there is a retired military man who is a devout Christian. He has some Muslim friends. They point out to him the verses in the Qur’an of Mecca that sound very good to him and they tell him, "This is Islam." He says, "This is very good. This is like Christianity. I like this. And besides, the Muslims are such moral people: they don't drink; their women are very modest; they don't gamble. This must be the real truth of Islam." And off he goes into the marketplace of ideas, proclaiming that Christianity and Islam are perfectly compatible. Indeed, they're like brothers. Because of duality, he does not understand that there is another truth---the truth of Medina. But his logic is a Western logic, and so he thinks, "Jihad is contrary to the peace of Islam, so jihad must be false, or else it must only mean 'inner struggle,' like an inner spiritual struggle against self. That must be it, because I believe in the truth of the peace of Mecca." Dualism has fooled him.

But dualism is used in all the words of Islam. They use the same words we do, but they have entirely different meanings. Let's take, for example, the word "peace"---'salaam.' Now, that sounds very nice, but when you understand what Islam means by peace, it's not nice at all.

Peace in Islam comes only after you have submitted to Islam. The submission can be brought about by jihad. So, here again, the Qur’an of Mecca covers over the Qur’an of Medina. That is, our common understanding of the word 'peace' hides the fact that jihad can be used to achieve Islamic peace.

Here's another example of dualism---women's rights. Muslims are very quick to use the term 'women's rights' and claim that Islam grants women rights. And this is true, but the rights they have are: the right to be beaten; the right to inherit half as much; and the right to have their testimony only be worth half of that of a man in court. This dualism allows a Muslim to look straight at a problem and not see the other half. After 9/11, Muslims protested, "We are the religion of peace." They were able to maintain that since they're so used to having a dualistic view. They can accept 'the religion of peace' as being absolutely true, while at the same time, they know that jihad is one of the teachings of Islam. Dualism allows a Muslim to have a totally compartmentalized mind, in which the Qur’an of Medina never interferes with the Qur’an of Mecca. But, deep within the political doctrine of Islam, we have duality and the kafir.

Jihad demands complete submission from the kafir and forces the kafir into a completely separate social and political class. Islam allows its women to be beaten. Once again, we see submission and duality. Islam has a separate set of rules for women. Both categories---kafirs and women---must submit.

Submission and duality are also part of Islamic slavery. Islamic slavery and its fundamental principles have already been discussed in a previous article. Submission and duality are demonstrated within the entire process of slavery. Who submits more than a slave? Who, within society, is as separated as a slave? Slaves fall under a separate moral code. We see that submission and duality completely explain slavery.

There is also the idea of the dhimmi and dhimmitude---again, we have the duality of a social and political class. The dhimmi exists within an Islamic political system, in which he is subjugated and not given full legal rights.

The grand duality in all Islam is Mecca and Medina. Mecca must submit to Medina, and the duality here is that you have two separate Qurans that contradict each other; yet both of them are completely true. We see submission and duality in Islam's ethics, where we have one set of rules for the believer, and another set of rules for the kafir. Islamic politics are dualistic. Muhammad, of course, is the chief dualist. His entire life is divided into the preacher, which did not work so well, and the successful jihadist/politician. Now, Islam says it worships one---and only one---God, but that God---Allah---is the God of duality, and the God of submission whom everyone is to fear. The Qur’an says, over 300 times, that we are to fear Allah.

All of Islam can be explained by the principles of duality and submission. That's the beauty of knowing the two principles. Once you understand duality, and once you understand submission, you really no longer have any need of the doctrine, because everything that happens in Islam can be explained by those two principles.

Every political system has fundamental principles that underlie it. Our political system of democracy has the Golden Rule as a foundation. The Golden Rule underlies everything that we do in government. It is our moral and political guide. Treat others as you wish to be treated. Some may jump up and say, "We don't always follow that principle, do we?" No, but we use the Golden Rule to criticize our own behavior, and if we can clearly point out that something is unfair and abuses others, then the Golden Rule is the principle we use to fix that. It is our guiding principle, even if it is not something that we always fulfill.

Islam denies the truth of the Golden Rule, because the Golden Rule is the same for every person, and Islam has two sets of behavior - one for the kafir and another for the believer. Islam divides humanity into Muslims and kafirs.

This is very important: We need to understand that there cannot be a compromise between submission and duality, and the Golden Rule. We would like to think that everyone can coexist peacefully, but Islam does not work like that. Islam demands submission. There is simply no compromise between a system that wants to use the Golden Rule and be democratic, and another system that says that everyone has to submit. When they say ‘everyone’ has to submit, Islam means everyone. Let's take some political examples.

What we now call Afghanistan used to be a Buddhist nation. It was a nation of peace and wealth. Then Islam invaded. Today, in Afghanistan, there is not a single Buddhist to be found. Not one. The only place you can find any Buddhism in Afghanistan is if you dig into the dirt like an archaeologist; and then you might be able to find the remnants of Buddhism.

Islam keeps working until 100% of a civilization gives way to it. Today, Turkey is 99.7% Islamic. Islam is working very hard to make sure that the other .3% disappears. This would mean that, over a period of time, every single Christian in Turkey would be gone. They will have emigrated elsewhere, or have been killed in a street riot. Islam does not cease until submission is 100%. Yet---and this is important---the entire time that Islam is making the kafir submit, it keeps proclaiming the truth of Mecca---it keeps claiming to be peaceful.

The principles of submission and duality contradict and deny the Golden Rule. So, how can it be, if they contradict, that they can both coexist? We're going to have to study the laws of duality and submission. Once you understand duality, you will not merely understand half a truth, and then proclaim that that is the entire truth. You will understand that Islam is grinding away, very slowly, at our own democratic rights.

Islam has an overwhelming advantage over the kafir. Islam has a thousand-year plan. Duality and submission are part of a thousand-year plan. Islam's duality and submission are like gravity. It never sleeps. It's always there. Always pressuring, always pushing. Submission must occur with the kafir---if not now, then tomorrow. Islam is very patient. Muhammad said that, in war, patience is a virtue. Muslims study Muhammad. They know that submission may take time, but Islam is very patient.

In Turkey, it's taken them 400 years to get to the 99.7% mark. They're not in a hurry. They can keep fooling the Europeans and say, ‘we're very democratic,’ but there you have another use of a word by Islam that does not mean the same thing that we mean. ‘Democratic’ in Turkey includes the elimination of all of the kafirs. True democracy is not what Islam practices. True democracy would mean that the kafir has an equal say along with the believer. The Qur’an of Medina says that cannot happen. The kafir must submit to the Qur’an of Medina. So, ‘democracy’ in Turkey is a sham and a fraud. It is a tool used as a way of submission, but in the public face of the political councils of Europe, the Qur’an of Mecca stands up and says ‘we are a modern state’---but this is merely a veil or Teflon coating. Meanwhile, the sword of the Qur’an of Medina is working. More Christians emigrate from Turkey all the time, just like they do in Iraq. In Iraq, they form 3% of the population and 30% of the emigrants, because they're unable to deal with submission inside of Iraq.

But in our country---which is, so far, free of duality and submission---we keep believing the Qur’an of Mecca. We are historically ignorant of the principle of duality. We only see one end of the stick---we don't see the other. We don't look at the man behind the curtain. We're fascinated by the cape, while we ignore the sword. The sweet words of the Qur’an of Mecca pour out of our media, our universities and our politicians' mouths, and we think this is good. We don't have to worry, because a peaceful Islam is here---a reformed Islam is here. So we can relax---we can go back to sleep.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Our next lesson is on the Koran (Qur'an). The Koran must surely be the world's most famous book that has not been read. How many people do you know who can say "I have read the Koran and understood it"? It turns out that (in a sense) there are two Korans. Once you understand how they differ, you will understand Islamic duality and why Islam always has two stories about any subject.

The word 'Koran' (or "Qur'an") is an Arabic word that means 'recitation.' According to Islam, the Koran is perfect, complete, universal and final. According to the teachings of Islam, the Koran contains not even the slightest error, since it comes directly from Allah, the only God of the universe. It is in his exact words. The Koran was created before the universe was created, and it sits on an emerald table at the right hand of Allah.

The Koran we have today was created, or brought together, by the 3rd caliph, Uthman. It is said that Muslims were beginning to say that there were many versions of the Koran, and there would soon be error. So Uthman, as absolute ruler, called in all of the Korans and turned them over to a secretary. It was the secretary's job to compile the new Koran. After it was put together, Uthman did something that was very telling---he burned all the original source material.

Now, ask yourself a question. Why did he burn the original source material, if the reason that they had put together a new Koran was that there were variations?

As a result of the burning of all the source Korans, Muslims like to boast today that their Koran has no variations, that it was delivered in this exact form from Allah, and the lack of variations shows its perfection. And then they point to variations in Biblical texts as proof of corruption of the texts.

Since Islam means submission, this argument that the Koran is perfect and the New Testament and Old Testament are corrupt and contain variations, is another assertion that demands submission from the Christian and the Jew.

The Koran contains 114 Suras, or chapters. If you pick up a Koran and thumb through it, you will notice very quickly that the long chapters are in the beginning, and the short chapters are all at the end. That is the way that the Koran is arranged, and this leads to one of the major difficulties in understanding it. Imagine: if you took a mystery novel and cut off the spine, and then you rearranged the chapters---you put the longest chapter up front and the shortest chapter at the back; then you rebound this book and handed it to a friend and told him, "This is a great mystery novel! Read this!" Your friend would try to read it and say, "I can't understand this. When I turn the page, I seem to go back in time, or sometimes forward in time. I don't understand---there's no story to this; there's no plot." And that is the way the Koran is arranged. Now, if you take the Koran and put it in the right time order (i.e., chronologically), then it is a much more logical book.

Another thing about the Koran that's confusing is that the stories, in many cases, are not complete. Every story has a beginning, a middle and an end, but most of the stories in the Koran, many times, are as if you walked in halfway through the story. You don't know what the beginning is. This is odd, since the Koran has obviously derived many of its stories from the Hebrew Bible---the Old Testament---and they are wonderfully told in the Christian and Jewish Scriptures; but not so with the Koran. There is not one really complete story in all of the Koran. There's always something missing.

Another thing that's interesting about the Koran is how repetitious it is. This becomes very tiring when you're trying to read it. As an example, the story of Moses and the Pharaoh is repeated, in one fashion or another, 39 times. The repetition is so intense in the Koran that, if you remove all of the repetition, it is cut in half, and that does not leave a very big book, since the Koran is about the same size as the New Testament.

There's another thing that's a little odd about the stories. They fall into two classifications. There is some retelling of old Arabic stories, and then there is the retelling of the Jewish stories: Adam, Noah, Moses...all of these characters appear in the Koran; but, if you're familiar with the stories in the Jewish Bible---the Torah---they're not the same. They merely have the same characters. For instance, in the Koran, it is the purpose of Moses not to free the Jews as slaves, but instead to get the Pharaoh to admit that Moses is the prophet of Allah. The same is true with the story of Noah. The whole story of Noah centers around making the people of the earth admit that Noah is the prophet of Allah, and because they would not admit that Noah was the prophet of Allah and do everything that he said, Allah destroyed the earth. So the stories are similar to the stories in the Old Testament, but they've all been changed so that they proclaim one theme - those who do not recognize the prophets of Allah will be destroyed.

The other thing that becomes apparent when you read the Koran is how much of it is devoted to the kafir---the unbeliever. As a matter of fact, 61% of the Koran is devoted to the kafir. That only leaves 39% to be devoted to being a Muslim. And that 39% is filled with repetition, so it is actually less than 39%. So, the Koran is not a very big book at all, when you get down to what it teaches about being a Muslim. There is not enough information in it to practice the religion of Islam. For a work which claims to be complete, it is remarkably incomplete. Of the Five Pillars of Islam, the Koran does not give enough information on how to perform them. The perfect and complete Koran does not teach how to be a Muslim. That information comes from the Hadith---the Traditions of Mohammed (Muhammad). Mohammed is the one who tells a Muslim how to worship, not Allah.

The other thing that strikes people who press on through and read the Koran, is that it is very contradictory. It says things that are completely opposite. So much so that, in the days of Mohammed, some of the kafirs pointed this out to Mohammed: "You said this earlier; now you're saying that; they're opposite---which is it?"

The Koran says Allah can replace a verse with one which is better. Let's dwell on this a moment. Replacing it with a verse which is better means that the better one comes later. To deal with contradiction, you need to know which verse was written earlier or later. This time order is known to scholars. Although the Koran you buy in the bookstore has it arranged from longest chapter to shortest chapter, since the beginning, Muslims have known what the right order is, in terms of time. This cancellation of one verse by another is called abrogation. But abrogation does not cancel or negate the verse, because if the earlier verse was by Allah, then that verse is true, because Allah, by definition, cannot tell a lie. So this leaves the Koran as a very peculiar book. It is contradictory, but both sides of the contradiction are true.

This turns out to be an insight into the understanding of Islam, because it means that Muslims can hold in their mind two contradictory ideas, and accept both of them as true at the same time. This explains how Muslims, after September 11th, were able to say that Islam is a peaceful religion. A peaceful religion doesn't send out jihadists to kill 3,000 people. That is a contradiction. But if you are a Muslim, you have been trained to accept contradictory facts, and so, as a result, these contradictions do not bother you at all---they don't cause you any mental problem. The Koran is a dualistic document. This dualism runs very deep in the Koran. If you arrange it in the right time order, the Koran written in Mecca is a radically different Koran than the one written in Medina. They are so different that you could take a class of college students, and in one hour's time, teach them how to pick out a verse taken at random, and tell you whether it was written in Mecca or Medina---the two Korans are that different.

The earlier Koran is more religious. There are 147 different references to Hell. Now, there are more than 147 verses about Hell, but taking it topic-by-topic, there are 147 of them. 94% of these say that the reason that the kafir is burning in hell is because he did not believe that Mohammed was the prophet of Allah. The remainder are people in hell for moral charges - that is, theft, greed, hate, etc. What does that tell us about Islamic Hell? It's a political prison for the intellectual dissenters who do not believe that Mohammed is the prophet of Allah, and indeed, the great majority of the Meccan Koran is devoted to that theme. Indeed, the entire Meccan Koran can be summarized in one sentence: 'Mohammed is the prophet of Allah, and if you don't believe it, you're going to suffer.'

Now, the Koran written in Medina continues with the same hatred of the kafir, but it manifests itself in a totally different way. There's not much mention of Hell in Medina, because a new form of suffering for the kafir is introduced. In Mecca, the kafir suffers after he dies. In Medina, he suffers in this lifetime. He can be tortured, beheaded, robbed, and worse. The Medinan Koran has the same kafir hatred, but this time there is jihad, where the kafir suffers and dies in this life. So the Medinan Koran is very political.

The Medinan Koran introduces Mohammed's greatest innovation, and that is jihad. It also introduces dhimmitude, the political subservience of the Christian and the Jew. Now, as soon as someone brings up the violence in the Koran, someone is going to say "Oh, well, the Koran is no different than the Old Testament; the Old Testament has a lot of violence in it, as well." Yes, there is violence in the Old Testament, but it's enormously different from the violence in the Koran. The violence in the Old Testament is local and temporary; it is against a neighboring tribe, and for a certain period of time. This is not true of the violence in the Koran. The violence in the Koran is universal and eternal. The jihad is to go on until the last kafir leaves the face of the earth. There's a great deal of difference between temporary and local violence, and a universal, eternal violence.

Although jihad is called 'Holy War,' it is really better simply described as political war. Why? Because the only reason in the Koran that people are attacked and killed is, they do not agree that Mohammed is the prophet of Allah. That's an intellectual idea, and so jihad is political war against the kafir.

The Koran is an Arabic document. More than once, it refers to its Arabic nature. That's very clear. Since the Koran was written before the creation and in the Arabic language, that implies that Allah is an Arab. This is a very important part of the Arabic hegemony [the political, economic, ideological or cultural power exerted by a dominant group over other groups]---that is, the Arab culture must dominate all other world cultures.

When you bring up something negative about the Koran, a Muslim quickly responds with, "Oh, but did you read it in the Arabic?" And then he will say, "Well, you can't really understand the Koran unless you read it in Arabic." Now let's stop and think about this statement for a moment. The Koran claims to be universal. That is, it applies to all people. But since only a small portion of the world reads Arabic, that means these ideas must be understandable in the languages other than Arabic, or they would not be universal. So which is it? Can the ideas be understood in any other language or not? Because, if the ideas in the Koran cannot be understood in other languages, then the Koran is not universal.

The other weakness to the argument, "Oh but you don't understand Arabic," is this: the great majority of Muslims today don't speak Arabic, so the Koran has been translated into their language, and they're fully practicing Muslims. In fact, fewer than 20% of Muslims in the world speak Arabic.

Now, many Muslims recite the Koran in classical Arabic, but the classical Arabic is not the Arabic language of today. Languages change over time, and a modern Arab cannot pick up a random Koran verse and read it and understand it. It's as if you were to study Chaucer. Chaucer wrote in the English of his day, but that English is very difficult for us to understand. It is the same with a native Arab speaker picking up the Koran and reading it. He, too, is not fully aware of what it means. He, too, has to have the classical Arabic translated into modern Arabic. The fact is that Arabic is really not a barrier to understanding the Koran. It's been translated into many languages.

In the end, the Koran is a document about the kafir. 61% of it is about hating the kafir and how the kafir must be subdued; therefore, the Koran is primarily a political document---not a religious document.

Now, what does the Koran bring to the table that is new? It brings two new ideas: that Mohammed is the prophet of Allah, and that jihad can be practiced against those who do not believe that is true. Everything else in the Koran is derivative. There are old Arabic stories, stories from the Old Testament that have been reworked, ideas from the Zoroastrian religion, and ideas from the local Arabic religion at the time of Mohammed. It is interesting that the Koran claims to be the work of a universal God, but the horizon of the Koran goes no further than Mohammed's eyes.

Until recently, the Koran has been a document that was difficult to read. That is no longer true. The work of scholars has now produced a book called "A Simple Koran," which has all the verses in the right order; and they've all been grouped, so you eliminate most of the repetition; Mohammed's life has been woven through "A Simple Koran," so the reader can see that, although the Koran claims to be a complete document, there are many, many things in the Koran that cannot be understood unless one knows the life of Mohammed. For instance: Which verse comes earlier? Which verse comes later? If you know Mohammed's life, it is easy to tell which one is earlier and which one is later. It is Mohammed's life that gives meaning to the Koran. The Koran does not make any sense without Mohammed's life. The Koran cannot be understood on its own. And yet, it claims to be complete.

Here's a small example: In the Koran, there is a remark about the destruction of the palm trees. The verse just comes out of nowhere. If you weave Mohammed's life into the Koran, then you know what it means. Mohammed was given authority to burn the palm trees, because it was only a few days earlier that he had attacked the Jews. They had a date palm plantation which he burned, contrary to the rules of war. The Arabs condemned him for violating the rules of war. Hence, the Koran declares that it was good to burn the palm trees.

This is an example of how Mohammed's life gives meaning to the Koran, and indeed, when Mohammed's life is woven into the Koran, the Koran becomes an epic story. It depicts Mohammed's rise to power from being an orphan and a businessman, to the supreme ruler of all of Arabia, with a goal of becoming the supreme ruler of all of the world. So the Koran is a great epic story. You should read it and understand it.

The Koran has been made to seem complicated. It is actually a simple text that contains only two new ideas: Mohammed is the final prophet, and jihad may be used to harm kafirs. The main idea in the Koran is the division of humanity into 'believer' and 'kafir,' and the triumph of Islam over all kafirs.

Monday, November 23, 2009

If you only learn one thing regarding Islam, learn about Islamic ethics. Islamic ethics do not share anything with our ethics. Islamic ethics are profoundly and foundationally dualistic. They have one set of rules for themselves, and another set of rules for everyone else, the kafirs. The treatment of kafirs varies from their being treated well to being beheaded. Both treatments reflect pure Islam. In Islam, kafirs can also be deceived, robbed, murdered and raped. There is even a word for sacred deceit---taquiyya.

On an ethical basis, there is no such thing as Islamic pacifism. Islam is a civilization of war and violence. The Sira and Koran show that Islam was a failure until it adopted violence. It then became overwhelmingly powerful. The Hadith (Traditions of Mohammed) is filled with details of the ethics of Islam.

Ethics is the great divide between Islam and all other cultures, but before we look at Islamic ethics, let's look at ours. Our ethics are based upon the Golden Rule---treat others as you would be treated. Who are the 'others?' The 'others' are ALL others. There's no elimination of someone because of race, sex, ethnicity, or religion. In our politics, everyone is to be treated fairly and equally before the law, and the Golden Rule leads to the concepts of what we call fair and what we call equal. Some may jump up and say, "But we don't do that all the time, do we?" No, it is true that we do not do that all the time, because every person is pulled between two contradictory ideas. One is to treat others as they should be treated. The other idea is purely selfish and to only look to ourselves. When we dwell on our own personal needs too much and start hurting or harming others, we can be corrected and brought back by saying, 'That is not fair,' and such 'fairness' is based upon the Golden Rule.

So the Golden Rule lies behind our legal and ethical system.

Islam does not follow the Golden Rule. Indeed Islam explicitly denies the Golden Rule. The Koran never addresses humanity as a whole. Instead, humanity is always divided into the kafir (the unbeliever) and the believer (the Muslim). The Koran is very clear that the kafir is to be treated differently from the believer, and this treatment can be very violent. So this division into kafir and believer eliminates the possibility of having a Golden Rule.

Islam, therefore, is dualistic. It has one set of rules for itself, and another set of rules for the kafir. There is no 'one humanity.'

The other difference between Islamic ethics and ours is that, fundamentally, there is no concept of right and wrong in Islam. All ethics in Islam are based upon what Mohammed did and did not do; therefore, the concepts inside of Islamic ethics are not 'right' and 'wrong,' but what is permitted and what is forbidden. Mohammed is viewed as the perfect ethical pattern. Every Muslim is to follow him and do what he did and say what he said. The ethics of Islam are determined by what Mohammed did and said---his Sunna. The rest of the ethics are found in the Koran.

Let's examine Islamic ethics regarding deceit, by reading some ideas that have been given to us by Muslims. Let's look at a quote from Ali Al Timimi, an internationally-known Muslim scholar and imam who had government clearance, who even worked with a former White House Chief of Staff and was invited to speak to the military about Islam.

Publicly, the imam denounced Islamic violence and said: "My position against terrorism and Muslim-inspired violence against innocent people is well known by Muslims." But privately, another picture emerged. Five days after the attacks on September 11th, he called them legitimate, and rallied young Muslim men in his mosque to carry out more Holy war and violent Jihad.

Another Islamic leader in this country, Abdurahman Alamoudi, who developed the Pentagon's Muslim chaplain corps, and acted as a good will ambassador for our State Department, also, denounced terror. "We are against all forms of terrorism," he claimed. "Our religion is against terrorism." Privately, he raised major funds for Al-Qaeda, and was caught on tape grumbling that Osama bin Laden had not killed enough kafirs in the U.S. Embassy bombings.

In our culture, we would call these men liars. But this does not apply inside of Islamic ethics, because what these men were practicing was deceit. They were talking to kafirs when they said those things. Let's examine what Mohammed said about deceiving the kafir.

In Medina, there was a Jew named al-Ashraf. Al-Ashraf wrote a poem in which he condemned Mohammed, and Mohammed, at the mosque, asked, "Who will rid me of Ashraf, the enemy of Allah and his prophet?" One of the Muslims said he would, but a few days later, Mohammed noticed that the task of killing al-Ashraf had not been done, so he went to the man and asked, "What are you doing?" The man said, "Mohammed, in order to kill Ashraf, I will have to tell a lie". Then Mohammed said, "Say whatever you need to say."

The Muslim took a couple of his friends and went to al-Ashraf and told him they were getting sick and tired of Mohammed, but before they could leave, they needed to have a little money, and were wondering if al-Ashraf could help. They wanted to borrow some money. Al-Ashraf said he would need some collateral to loan them money. And so, they suggested that perhaps they could bring him their weapons - their swords and knives - and leave them in pawn. He agreed.

So, the next night, the three Muslims showed up, their weapons in hand. But al-Ashraf was not concerned: they had come to pawn the weapons. They chatted with him in a friendly way and said, "It is night---a pleasant night; let us go for a walk and discuss things". So they did. But, in the middle of the walk, after they had recited some poetry, one of them grabbed him by the hair of the head, said to the other, "Kill him", and they knifed him in the stomach and killed al-Ashraf.

When they came back to Mohammed, Mohammed was delighted at the death of the enemy of Allah and the prophet. He had given them permission to lie, because they were dealing with a kafir, and the lie advanced Islam. Here we have dualism. A Muslim is told not to lie to another Muslim, but with a kafir, there is an option. The Muslim can tell the kafir the truth, or he can tell him a lie, if it will advance Islam. And this was repeated many times in Mohammed's life. So much so that, at one point he said, 'Jihad is deceit.'

Now let's go back to the idea that Islam does not use terror. And let's take a look at another story. This one happened in Russia, in Beslan, where there was a school, and the school had roughly a thousand people in it, including the children and the personnel. Some Muslim Jihadists attacked the school and took it over, and held everyone in it. The Jihadists took all of the children and put them in the gymnasium. They were kept there for days without food or water. Finally, the Russian special forces decided that they needed to go in. There was chaos, and as the children jumped out the windows and ran for safety, the Jihadists shot them in the back.

The attack continued. Once it became clear that they were going to lose the building, the Jihadists fell back from their original plan. They had brought explosives, so they placed them in such a way that, when they detonated them, the roof fell in on the children. This was the way that most of the children were killed. This was a terrible attack, but what happened after the attack is what we want to point out.

Muslim scholars and Muslim imams all said the same thing: "That was not Islam. In Islam, we are forbidden to kill women and children." And that is true; there are Hadiths which state that women and children are not to be killed. However, there are other Hadiths in which they were getting ready to attack a tribe, and the simple reason they were attacking is that the people were kafirs---who had done nothing wrong. They decided to attack at night, and they asked Mohammed, 'What if they made a mistake in the dark and wound up killing women and children?'---and Mohammed said, "They are from them." ("them" = unbelievers)

Well, now we have a contradiction. We have Mohammed saying, 'Do not kill women and children,' and we have Mohammed saying, 'Kill them, they are from them.' This is dualism. We have contradictory facts, but both of them are true. The Jihadists can choose whichever they want. And what did the Jihadists in Beslan do? They chose to kill the children. Why? "They are from them." That is, they are kafirs.

In Mohammed's time, in which he developed the ethics of Jihad, he always had the kafirs confused. The Arabs, just like everyone else, had rules for warfare. Since Mohammed was an Arab, they kept expecting him to follow the rules, but Mohammed did not follow the rules. He made them up as he went.

As far as terror not being Islamic, Mohammed said, in one of the most famous Hadiths, "I have been given five things that have never been given to anyone before me." One of these things he was given was that Allah allowed him to spread Islam by awe and terror.

Jihad is terror. So when Muslim scholars say terror is not the way of Islam, they are practicing deceit. Indeed, the practice of deceit even has a special name in Arabic, which we mentioned earlier---taquiyya. It means 'sacred deception.' To even have the concept of 'sacred deceit' is an amazing ethical thought.

Here's another example of deceit in Jihad. In modern times, we have grown used to the fact that a Muslim Jihadist can strap on dynamite and walk into a room filled with people---kafirs---and kill himself and everyone else. Muslim clerics say that is not Islam, because suicide is forbidden in Islam. And this is true. Suicide is forbidden in Islam. But there is a very famous Hadith in which Mohammed said that killing yourself while trying to kill kafirs sends you straight to Heaven; therefore, the ethical expectation of the person who kills himself in the face of killing others, is that he will go straight to Heaven. He is a martyr.

In the very term 'martyr' in Islam, we see the difference between the West and Islam, because the word 'martyr' in Islam means someone who dies while killing kafirs; whereas, in our language, a martyr is one who is killed because of what he believes.

Here's another example of the ethical divide. Currently, in America, there is debate over whether waterboarding is torture. Indeed, the idea of what constitutes torture has been talked about in the media. There is, however, no debate inside the Islamic world about torturing kafirs, and the reason is, Mohammed tortured kafirs. There's a famous story about when he attacked a tribe of Jews. After the Jews had surrendered, they took the leader of the Jews and staked him out on the ground at Mohammed's orders. The reason they did this was that they knew that the Jews had a buried treasure. Mohammed had a small fire built on the old man's chest, but the old man refused to speak. He would not give up the secret of the treasure, so, finally, Mohammed said, 'Cut him loose,' and he took him over to a Jihadist who had lost a brother in the attack on the Jews, and he gave the brother the pleasure of killing the leader of the Jews. So, as a consequence, inside of Islam, there are no questions about whether torture can be used against kafirs. It is Sunna. It is the way of Mohammed to torture the kafir.

Islamic ethics are clearly laid out in the Hadith. Here are some statements about Islamic ethics found in various traditions: 'A Muslim is to never cheat another Muslim in business.' 'A Muslim does not lie to another Muslim.' 'A Muslim does not kill another Muslim.' 'A Muslim does not bother another Muslim's wife.' These statements are very dualistic, because this behavior is only reserved for other Muslims. A Muslim is a brother to other Muslims. Anyone who knows Muslims says, "Wait a minute; I know a lot of Muslims, and they don't lie to me, and they don't cheat me in business. They don't come to work with dynamite and kill themselves and other people." This is duality. The kafir has two ways of being treated. He can be treated as a human being. The Golden Rule can even be applied to him if it will advance Islam, but the truth does not need to be told; the truth can be shaded. The most common form of this deceit is for Muslims to only discuss the Koran of Mecca. Only talking about the Koran of Mecca is telling a half-truth, not telling the whole truth.

In our courts, we swear to tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. 'Nothing but the truth' prohibits direct lies. But it's equally important to tell the whole truth, because telling half a truth is just another form of a lie. So, when a Muslim discusses with a kafir the Koran of Mecca---the 'good' Koran---this is a form of deceit. All Muslims obey an ethical code which is quite different from our ethical code.

Islamic ethics support how Muslims treat women. For instance, women can be beaten. Women are set apart in their own separate code. There is an ethical system for slavery. Mohammed was the perfect slave master. His Sunna laid out all the ways that slaves are to be treated. There is also an ethical system for the treatment of the dhimmi, that strange political creature who is not quite a slave, but certainly not a citizen.

So, Islamic ethics lie behind everything that a Muslim does---but it does bring up political questions: If a Muslim does not have to tell the kafir the truth, why would we use Muslim translators for Arabic documents inside of the FBI and the CIA? Muslim translators take an oath, but Islam has a very unique interpretation of oaths: that is, an oath can always be changed by a Muslim for something better, and there is a Hadith which explicitly states this. But the Hadith does not really say what is better. That is the choice of the Muslim. So if we have a Muslim policeman or a military man who takes an oath to serve and protect, he can change it anytime he wishes. And for that matter, this same changing of oaths is applied to treaties---political treaties. If the Muslim nation signs a treaty with a kafir, it can be abrogated at any time, as long as Islam comes out on top.

To deal with Islam, it is critical that we understand its ethics. We assume that they're the same as ours, but this assumption is based upon ignorance, because Islamic ethics are very different from ours. Ours are based on the unitary law of treating all people the same (which originally comes from the Bible). Islamic ethics are based upon the idea of kafirs and believers, and having a separate set of ethics for each one. One cannot understand Islam without understanding its ethical duality.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!" At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds." (John 8:58-59)

"I and the Father are one." Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him." (John 10:30-31)

"We are not stoning you for any of these," replied the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God." (John 10:33)

"Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, "He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy." (Matthew 26:65)

God's temple was holy to the Jews. Who was holier than the temple? Only God Himself was holier than the temple. Yet, Jesus said in Matt. 12:6, referring to Himself, "I tell you that one greater than the temple is here." He was inferring that He was God.

The Sabbath Day was a holy day. The Lord of the Sabbath was God. Yet, Jesus said in Matt. 12:8, "For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." He was claiming to be God here.

"For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God." (John 5:18)

"Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?" God said to Moses, "I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.' " (Exodus 3:13-14)

Several times Jesus described Himself, introduced by the term, "I AM." (John 6:35; 8:12; 9:5; 10:7,9,11,14). In the Greek, the words are solemnly emphatic and echo Exodus 3:14. And John 8:58-59 says, "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!" At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds."

"Jesus, therefore, knowing all things that are coming upon him, having gone forth, said to them, `Whom do ye seek?' they answered him, `Jesus the Nazarene;' Jesus saith to them, `I am [he];' -- and Judas who delivered him up was standing with them; -- when, therefore, he said to them -- `I am [he],' they went away backward, and fell to the ground." (John 18:4-6, Young's Literal Translation) [NOTE: The word "he" is not in the original Greek. In the Greek, Jesus merely says, "I am."]

The men who fell backward were those who had come to arrest Jesus before the crucifixion. This shows that Jesus was God, and had power over the soldiers, and could have destroyed them if He wished.

Those Jews understood that Jesus was claiming to be God, and was calling Himself by the Name of God from Exodus 3:14. They wanted to kill Jesus because of blasphemy, because He claimed to be God. This is why they finally manipulated the Romans into crucifying Him.

"Jesus, therefore, said to them, `When ye may lift up the Son of Man then ye will know that I am [he]; and of myself I do nothing, but according as my Father did teach me, these things I speak." (John 8:28, Young's Literal Translation)

"No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life." (John 6:46-47)

"Then they asked him, "Where is your father?" "You do not know me or my Father," Jesus replied. "If you knew me, you would know my Father also." He spoke these words while teaching in the temple area near the place where the offerings were put. Yet no one seized him, because his time had not yet come." (John 8:19-20)

"Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one." (John 10:25-30)

"You are not my sheep": The unbelieving Jews were not of the Elect; they did not know God. Though the Jews as a nation are God's chosen people, not every Jew will be saved.

"They shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my / my Father's hand": The Elect are secure in Christ.

In John 10:30, Jesus says, "I and the Father are one." The Greek is neuter--"one thing," not "one person." The two are one in essence or nature, but they are not identical Persons. This supports the Trinity---one God, yet three Persons. This great truth is what warrants Jesus' "I Am" declarations.

"I and the Father are one": Jesus was saying that He and the Father are one God (though distinct Persons). Each Person of the Trinity---Father, Son and Holy Spirit---has always existed. With man, one person = one being. But God is not like man. With God, one Supreme Being = three Persons. A human being does not have gills like fish. Neither does a human being have wings like a bird. Similarly, a human being is not made up of three persons. But, just as fish and birds are not human beings, so God is not a human being. So, although man was made in the image of God, that does not mean that man has all the characteristics of God. For example, man is not omnipotent, omniscient, or omnipresent; yet God is.

"Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?" (John 14:9)

"He who hates me hates my Father as well." (John 15:23)

"I said, therefore, to you, that ye shall die in your sins, for if ye may not believe that I am [he], ye shall die in your sins." (John 8:24, Young's Literal Translation)